What she wouldn’t do to be back in London with her beloved pet tucked cozily on her lap and not a single surly duke in sight. Speaking of which…wherewasSterling?
By her estimation she’d already been waiting for the better part of twenty minutes. Without her bonnet to provide shade, the sun was beating mercilessly down on her head, causing a trickle of sweat to drip between her shoulder blades. The duke had left her–quite literally–to bake in the early afternoon heat without a thought to her comfort or that of the poor horse who had brought them here.
The carriage rocked from side to side as Rosemary dismounted. Waving down a young lad with a gray felt cap tugged low over his mess of blond hair, she dug around in her reticule and gave him a shilling to bring the horse a cool bucket of water and then keep watch over the gelding while she went to track down Sterling.
It wasn’t difficult to locate him. Once her eyes had adjusted to the pub’s dimly lit interior, she spotted the duke immediately. Aside from the barman, he was apparently the only other person who saw fit to frequent a drinking establishment before noon.
She pinched her bottom lip between her teeth as she hovered indecisively in the open doorway. Maybe it would be best to return to the carriage and wait. Except Sterling didn’t seem to be in any rush to leave. Sitting on a stool at the bar, he had his chin in one hand and a metal tankard in the other. Half-cast in shadow, his countenance was unreadable. His posture was somehow both stiff and weary at the same time, as if he’d traveled a great distance to get here. Exceptshe’ddone the driving, hadn’t she? He had just sat there like a bump on a log. An ill-mannered bump, at that.
Her mind made up, Rosemary squared her shoulders. A floorboard creaked beneath her foot as she walked briskly into the pub, causing Sterling’s head to lift and his eyes to narrow.
“You can’t be in here,” he said.
“You’rehere,” she pointed out.
“That’s because I’m a man and you’re…”
“I’m…?”
“You.” He lifted the tankard to his mouth. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“I have already waited twenty.”
He shrugged. “Then you won’t mind another five.”
Oh!
Maybe it was because she was sheltered. Or maybe she’d just never really paid attention before. But Rosemary was fairly certain that she’d never,evermet someone as infuriatingly disagreeable as the Duke of Hanover!
All things considered, she wouldn’t be surprised to discover that hehadkilled his mistress. But not by use of brute force. The poor woman had probably expired due to explicit rudeness.
“What is so good about that drink that you couldn’t wait until we were back at the estate?” she demanded. When Sterling was not forthcoming with an answer, she decided to figure it out for herself. Before he could stop her, she marched up to his stool, plucked the tankard right out of his hand, and took a big swill of whatever was inside.
“Rosemary,” he said with some alarm. “I wouldn’t–devil take it!” Cursing when she choked and gagged and blindly thrust the fire–for surely it was fire–onto the bar, he sprang from his seat and wrapped a supporting arm around her waist as she doubled over, tears streaming down her cheeks while the flames shot from her throat into her belly.
“That’s–that’s vile!” she cried. “The worst thing I’ve ever tasted. And I once ate a boiled pig’s tongue by accident!”
“How on earth did you eat a–never mind. Take deep breaths. That’s it.” He began to rub her back in large, soothing circles. “That’s better.”
When the worst of it had passed and her tongue had regained some feeling, his hand fell away and she lifted her head to find him grinning crookedly at her, a glint of amusement shining in those wolfish gray eyes. His smile–the first genuine one she’d seen from him–stripped years of hard, polished veneer from his countenance, giving her a rare glimpse at the man beneath.
“This is not humorous in the least,” she said primly, pretending not to notice the lick of heat under her skin that had nothing to do with whatever terrible concoction she’d drank and everything to do with the duke standing in front of her.
Rosemary wasn’t–couldn’t be–attracted to Sterling.
He was everything she detested in a person.
Obnoxious, unpleasant, and belligerent.
Not to mention discourteous.
But then, she’d always been drawn to the hurt and the vulnerable. The baby bird that had fallen from its nest. The orphaned squirrel without a home to return to. The carriage horse in need of a comforting hand upon its shoulder and a fresh bucket of water to quench its thirst.
Sterling wasn’t a wounded animal. That much was clear. But there was hurt there just the same, hiding behind the sharp-edged charm that he used like a sword to keep everyone at arm’s length. Everyone, it seemed, except for her.
“It’s alittlehumorous.” He propped his elbow on the edge of the bar. “I take it from your reaction that you’ve never had gin before?”
“That’sgin?That’swhat you drink every night?” she said, eyeing the tankard in disbelief. Having sipped the occasional glass of wine and champagne at her grandmother’s dinner parties, she had naturally assumed that was what Sterling was drinking whenever he took a nip from the silver flask he carried with him. Not some foul-tasting brew that had most likely burned a hole in the bottom of her stomach! “But…it’s so terrible. How do you do it?Whydo you do it?”
